I have lots of thoughts and feelings about mothers. I have one, I am one. My first and strongest belief is that some of the best mothers on this planet have never given birth to a child. I know some of these ladies personally. They adopt, they foster, they teach, and they love unconditionally, and they are true mothers, despite their lack of a birth story. I look to them for inspiration and direction when I have questions or doubts about my own mothering abilities.

In honor of Mother’s Day on Sunday and as a tribute to all the mothers (biological or not) whom I admire and love, here are my favorite quotes about the wonderful and exhausting task of being a mom.

“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.”
–Robert A. Heinlein

“Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had…and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.”
–Linda Wooten

“Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did – that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that – a parent’s heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.”
― Debra Ginsberg

“Be a Mother who is committed to loving her children into standing on higher ground than the enviroment surrounding them. Mothers are endowed with a love that is unlike any other love on the face of the earth.”
― Marjorie Pay Hinckley

“Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark…to have been loved so deeply…will give us some protection forever.”
–J.K. Rowling

“A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.”
–Emily Dickinson

“There is an instinct in a woman to love most her own child- and an instinct to make any child who needs her love, her own.
–Robert Brault

“It is the custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can’t) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.”
― J.M. Barrie

“Mother is a verb, not a noun.”
–Proverb

“Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Jo’s Boys

“My parents elected me president of the family when I was four. We actually had an election every year and I always won. I’m an only child, and I could count on my mother’s vote.”
–Condoleezza Rice

“When they’ve finished reading, Olivia’s mother gives her a kiss and says, ‘You know, you really wear me out. But I love you anyway.’ And Olivia gives her a kiss back and says, ‘I love you anyway too.'”
–Ian Falconer, Olivia

“A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.”
–Tenneva Jordan

“Gilbert put his arm about them. ‘Oh, you mothers!’ he said. ‘You mothers! God knew what He was about when He made you.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams

“Mothers are all slightly insane.”
–J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“They came to her, naturally, since she was a woman, all day long with this and that; one wanting this another that; the children were growing up; she often felt she was nothing but a sponge sopped full of human emotions.”
–Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“Isn’t that what I always think when I get The Poor Motherless Girl Look? Like I’ve been shoved out of the airplane without a parachute, because mothers are the parachutes.”
–Jandy Nelson, I’ll Give You the Sun

“It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.”

― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.”
–Oprah Winfrey

And finally when I think about the endless and eternal list of small, monotonous tasks it takes to raise children and to love them fiercely, this quote makes me feel infinitely better about my lot in life.

“It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listens to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges help, gives credit, says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the lonely, is the whole thing. What is most beautiful is least acknowledged. What is worth dying for is barely noticed.”
–Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise